Міністр оборони США Джим Маттіс перебуває 13 березня в Афганістані з візитом, який заздалегідь не був оголошений. Метою його перебування в Кабулі є аналіз підсумків бойових дій та оцінка перспектив залучення деяких представників руху «Талібан» до мирних переговорів з афганським урядом.
Несподіваний візит відбувається в час, коли Сполучені Штати вводять нові ресурси у більш ніж 16-тирічну війну.
Перед тим, як приземлитися в столиці Афганістану, Маттіс заявив журналістам, що Сполучені Штати фіксують ознаки інтересу «малих груп» талібів до можливості переговорів про припинення насильства.
28 лютого президент Афганістану Ашраф Гані запропонував дозволити талібам перетворитися на політичну партію і заявив, що працюватиме над тим, щоб усунути санкції проти угруповання та запропонувати інші стимули, якщо рух «Талібан» приєднається до мирних переговорів.
«Талібан» наразі є далеким від прямих переговорів із підтримуваним Заходом урядом, який, на думку талібів, є незаконним.
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Британські засоби інформації не працюватимуть у Росії, якщо Лондон запровадить санкції щодо телеканалу Russia Today у зв’язку зі «справою Скрипаля», заявила 13 березня речниця російського МЗС Марія Захарова.
На засіданні британського парламенту 12 березня кілька депутатів висловилися за припинення мовлення у Великій Британії «російського пропагандистського каналу RT». Прем’єр-міністр Тереза Мей, сказавши, що, цілком ймовірно, інцидент з отруєнням був організований російською стороною, наголосила: для ухвалення рішень потрібні тверді докази.
Влада Великої Британії запропонувала Москві до вечора вівторка, 13 березня, дати відповідь про причини, з яких російський нервово-паралітичний засіб бойового призначення міг опинитися на британській території.
Уранці 14 березня, за словами Мей, у Лондоні обговорюватимуть російську відповідь. Російська сторона заявила, що не приймає «ультиматум» Лондона і не співпрацюватиме доти, доки британська сторона не надасть результати свого розслідування.
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Речниця Служби безпеки України Олена Гітлянська заявила Радіо Свобода, що «не володіє» інформацією про візит голови Центрального розвідувального управління США Майка Помпео на Донбас.
«Я не володію такою інформацією. Єдине, що знаю, – 8 березня голова СБУ Василь Грицак був у Києві», – сказала Гітлянська.
13 березня «Дзеркало тижня» з посиланням на свої джерела написало, що 8 березня Помпео відвідав Україну за запрошенням Грицака. За інформацією видання, голова ЦРУ побував у прикордонних з окупованими територіями районах Донбасу, зокрема, у Краматорську, який відвідав разом з Грицаком.
13 березня президент США Дональд Трамп повідомив, що Тіллерсон звільнений із посади державного секретаря США. Президент зазначив, що американське зовнішньополітичне відомство очолить Майк Помпео, а головою ЦРУ стане його заступниця Джина Геспел.
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“Dona Edir, Dona Edir” — the call is heard frequently in the narrow lanes of Canaa, a slum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
It is for Edir Dariux Teixeira, who is well known among the residents, having spent more than a third of her life trying to improve infrastructure and basic services in the ramshackle settlement.
At the heart of that fight are legal property titles to the residents’ homes — or, more accurately, the lack of them.
“Without these documents we have no rights,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, sitting close to a fan to alleviate the near-40C (104°F) heat funneling from her asbestos roof.
Debates on how to manage property rights in the world’s informal settlements are becoming ever more pressing, as millions of people move into cities from rural areas every year and many end up in fast-growing slums.
Rio has about 1,000 slums, known locally as favelas. They are home to nearly one in four of the city’s population and typically lack a range of infrastructure and services, experts say.
In Canaa, having title would bring certainty of tenure, and also help to get services provided: sewerage, basic sanitation, and tarred streets, said Teixeira.
“I am anxious. I pray every day [for land titles],” the 59-year-old said.
When she moved to the area 22 years ago, there was a lack of all basic infrastructure in Canaa, including clean water, pavements and lighting.
Teixeira realized change had to be driven by the residents’ themselves and took the lead in trying to improve the area.
“There was nothing here. It was all jungle,” said housewife Glaucia Milani, who has been living in the favela for 25 years. “Now things are getting better because of Dona Edir’s help.”
Milani said apart from helping residents to get legal title to their land, Teixeira has been organising food and clothes donations for the favela and its 300 families.
“Dona Edir is a great mother to us. Anything she can help us, she helps… Dona Edir solves everything for us,” Milani, 31, said. “Dona Edir is a warrior.”
Complex situation
Getting land titles for the residents is no easy task, Teixeira said, not least because some residents have bought land from private owners, while others are squatting.
Her own plot of land was donated by an uncle of her ex-husband but neither Teixeira nor the other residents have official proof of ownership.
ITERJ, the government body in charge of managing land in the state of Rio de Janeiro and responsible for Teixeira’s request to get titles for Canaa’s residents, did not respond to requests for comment.
Most of the favela’s streets got temporary pavements about five years ago but Teixeira said it happened only after she asked a politician for help because taxis were refusing to enter Canaa because the roads were full of potholes.
Despite Teixeira’s efforts, the residents in the favela about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Rio’s city center are still waiting for the streets to be fully paved, sidewalks to be built and manholes to be constructed.
Teixeira has asked the city to fully pave the streets, provide sewerage infrastructure and a health post for the favela.
In emailed comments to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Rio’s city hall said the favela was “urbanized” four years ago but did not immediately respond to requests for details about which services were provided to the area.
Fighting for justice
A “very shocking scene” at school when Teixeira was eight years old prompted her decision to dedicate her life to fighting justice, she said.
While she and a boy were having a snack during a school break, another girl asked the boy to give her a piece.
“The boy said: only if you spread your legs,” she said. “Then she immediately spread her legs and … he gave her a bite. That broke my heart.”
At 15, Teixeira was raped and later witnessed the rape of a friend, experiences she said strengthened her resolve to help women.
Teixeira has been working for many years as a volunteer at a charity that distributes food in Rio’s poor neighborhoods, including Canaa.
She was honored for her work with a prize from the Federação de Mulheres Fluminenses, a Rio-based women’s federation.
Meanwhile, Teixeira, who survives on her father’s pension and cleans houses to make money, spends whatever she can of her income — equivalent to $300 a month — on building a school in the patio of her house.
“I do the construction works myself. When there is any money left I pay a professional to do the harder things,” she said.
Beyond literacy, her school will offer a range of classes: cooking, sewing, handicrafts and theater.
“That is my dream. … My dream is to take the kids off the street … because they have nothing to do [here],” she said in tears.
“There are lots of volunteers. What is missing is money to finish the school.”
Teixeira hopes the city will officially recognize Canaa as the favela’s name — it is the Portuguese version of Canaan and was chosen by her in reference to a passage from the Bible of a land promised by God to chosen people.
“We have to have faith. The faith in God is what keeps me standing. And the victories make me keep going,” said Teixeira.
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Греція на невизначений час призупинила свою футбольну лігу після того, як власник футбольного клубу ПАОК вийшов на поле у Салоніках зі зброєю на знак протесту проти рішення арбітра у грі з командою АЕК.
12 березня у ФІФА закликали владу Греції вжити рішучих дій проти власника ПАОК Івана Саввіді, або призупинити матчі національної ліги.
У поліції заявили, що розслідують інцидент з Саввіді, речниця російської групи компаній «Агроком» Саввіді Тетяна Гордіна заявила, що той не зробив ніяких загрозливих жестів, а був, як вона висловилася, можливо, факт «порушення правил спорту».
Інцидент засудили європейські і світові футбольні організації.
11 березня власник з 2012 року клубу ПАОК, російський підприємець Іван Саввіді перервав матч чемпіонату Греції з футболу з командою АЕК в Салоніках. Це сталося після того, як арбітр не зарахував гол його команди. Саввіді вибіг на поле, за поясом у бізнесмена висіла кобура. Він накинувся із звинуваченнями на арбітра Георгіоса Камініса. Після цього за рішенням арбітра матч був закінчений, а гравці АЕК покинули поле.
Саввіді – російсько-грецький бізнесмен, родом з в Грузії. Він заробив свій перший капітал на приватизації сигаретної фабрики на півдні Росії в 1990-х роках.
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Сполучені Штати попереджають, що готові діяти для припинення хімічних нападів в Сирії і «нелюдських страждань», якщо Росія, Іран і сили сирійського президента Башара аль-Асада продовжуватимуть ігнорувати 30-денне припинення вогню, схвалене Організацією Об’єдднаних Націй. Як заявила посол США в ООН Ніккі Гейлі 12 березня в Раді безпеки ООН, припинення вогню, схвалене два тижні тому, «провалилося», і США пропонують нове 30-денне перемир’я, яке, за її словами, не матиме «лазівок» для його порушення Асадом та його союзниками.
Гейлі звинуватила Сирію та її союзників в тому, що Росія та Іран використовують такі «лазівки», щоб «продовжувати морити голодом та вбивати сотні тисяч невинних сирійських мирних жителів» в передмісті Дамаска, Східній Гуті.
«Режим Асада, Іран і Росія продовжують вести війну проти своїх політичних супротивників», – сказала Гейлі. – Сьогодні ми маємо запитати, чи може Росія більше не впливати на режим Асада, щоб зупинити жахливе знищення лікарень, медичних закладів і карет швидкої допомоги. Припинити скидати хімічну зброю в села».
Якщо сторони продовжать ігнорувати перемир’я, Сполучені Штати готові вжити відповідних заходів, додала Гейлі.
«Коли міжнародне співтовариство не в змозі діяти послідовно, виникають випадки, коли держави змушені вживати свої власні дії», – прокоментувала посол США в ООН.ю
Генеральний секретар ООН Антоніо Ґутерріш заявив на засіданні Ради безпеки ООН, що повітряні удари, обстріли і наземні атаки лише посилились в Східній Гуті, відколи ООН 24 лютого оголосила про 30-денне припинення вогню. Росія заявила, що вдалася до 5-годинних щоденних перерв у бойових діях, які буцімто дозволили евакуювати цивільних поранених з районів боїв, дозволити доставку деякої гуманітарної допомоги. За даними Сирійської обсерваторії з прав людини, попри це, загинуло щонайменше 1162 мирних жителі, в тому числі 241 дитина.
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Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called himself “a proud feminist” Monday and said all men should support women’s rights and gender equality.
His statement was loudly applauded by hundreds of women and a sprinkling of men at the opening of the annual two-week meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women, a U.N. body that Guterres called “vital to end the stereotypes and discrimination that limit women’s and girls’ opportunities.”
The U.N. chief said changing “the unequal power dynamics” that underpin discrimination and violence against women is “the greatest human rights challenge of our time” – and a goal that is “in everyone’s interests.”
“Discrimination against women damages communities, organizations, companies, economies and societies,” he said. “That is why all men should support women’s rights and gender equality. And that is why I consider myself a proud feminist.”
Guterres added that this is “a pivotal moment for the rights of women and girls,” with the issue being discussed around the globe in the (hash)MeToo and (hash)Time’sUp movements.
As examples of the male-dominated world and male-dominated culture that needs changing, he said, “Women are pioneering scientists and mathematicians – but they occupy less than 30 percent of research and development jobs worldwide.”
And despite women being accomplished artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers, this year 33 men took home Oscars at the Academy Awards, but only six women did, he said.
The theme of this year’s U.N. meeting, which ends March 23, is “Empowering Rural Women and Girls.” Guterres called such women “particularly marginalized.”
According to UN Women, rural women do much of the work but fare worse than rural men or urban women.
“Less than 13 percent of landholders worldwide are women, and while the global pay gap between men and women stands at 23 percent, in rural areas, it can be as high as 40 percent,” UN Women says.
Ireland’s U.N. ambassador, Geraldine Byrne Nason, the commission chair, said its work will focus on these women “who are furthest behind” and are “disproportionately affected by violence, poverty, climate change and hunger.”
“Often their predicament quite simply shames us,” she said.
“We want to make a difference. We have had enough rhetoric. Time is up for the debates that are long on promises and short on delivery,” Byrne Nason said. “We are on the move to bring a tangible result – one that will impact on the lives of women and girls in rural areas.”
UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told the opening session that almost one-third of employed women worldwide work in agriculture and there are 400 million women who are farm workers.
“Half of rural poor women in developing countries have no basic literacy, and 15 million girls of primary school age will never, never get the chance to learn to read or write in primary school,” she said.
A rural girl is “twice as likely to be married as a child” compared to an urban girl, she added.
Mlambo-Ngcuka warned that progress toward gender equality is slowing and some gains are even reversing.
She pointed to the World Economic Forum’s 2017 “Global Gender Gap Report,” which found the gap between women and men widening in health, education, politics and the workplace for the first time since the forum’s research started in 2006.
“It predicts that it will take – and listen to this – 217 years before we achieve gender parity,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said, stressing that this can’t be allowed to happen.
“It has never been so urgent to hold ourselves and leaders accountable for the promises to accelerate progress,” she said. “The ‘Me Too’ movement and ‘Time’s Up’ has also showed us change can happen fast – and that women must be believed. This is a moment that we intend to sustain for all.”
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У зоні бойових дій на Донбасі 12 березня двоє українських військовослужбовців зазнали поранень, повідомляє штаб української воєнної операції. За цими даними, підтримувані Росією бойовики п’ять разів обстріляли позиції Збройних сил України.
Згідно з повідомленням, бойовики з мінометів, гранатометів, великокаліберних кулеметів та стрілецької зброї стріляли у районі населених пунктів Новгородське, Луганське, Павлопіль, Водяне та Авдіївка.
Бойовики з угруповання «ДНР» повідомили, що військові ЗСУ відкрили у понеділок ввечері вогонь по окупованих бойовиками селах Дзержинське та Ленінське на Донеччині. Бойовики з угруповання «ЛНР» не повідомляли про останні години на захоплених ними територіях.
Тристороння контактна група щодо врегулювання ситуації на Донбасі оголосила про чергову спробу відновити режим припинення вогню, як «повний і безстроковий», з 00:01 години 5 березня. Але він був порушений уже в перші години дії, як і попередні перемир’я. Сторони заперечують свою вину в цьому і звинувачують противників у провокаціях.
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The daily commute from Mexico to California farms is the same as it was before Donald Trump became president. Hundreds of Mexicans cross the border and line the sidewalks of Calexico’s tiny downtown by 4 a.m., napping on cardboard sheets and blankets or sipping coffee from a 24-hour doughnut shop until buses leave for the fields.
For decades, cross-border commuters have picked lettuce, carrots, broccoli, onions, cauliflower and other vegetables that make California’s Imperial Valley “America’s Salad Bowl” from December through March. As Trump visits the border Tuesday, the harvest is a reminder of how little has changed despite heated immigration rhetoric in Washington.
Trump will inspect eight prototypes for a future 30-foot border wall that were built in San Diego last fall. He made a “big, beautiful wall” a centerpiece of his campaign and said Mexico would pay for it.
But border barriers extend the same 654 miles (1,046 kilometers) they did under President Barack Obama and so far Trump hasn’t gotten Mexico or Congress to pay for a new wall.
Trump also pledged to expand the Border Patrol by 5,000 agents, but staffing fell during his first year in office farther below a congressional mandate because the government has been unable to keep pace with attrition and retirements. There were 19,437 agents at the end of September, down from 19,828 a year earlier.
In Tijuana, tens of thousands of commuters still line up weekday mornings for San Diego at the nation’s busiest border crossing, some for jobs in landscaping, housekeeping, hotel maids and shipyard maintenance. The vast majority are U.S. citizens and legal residents or holders of “border crossing cards” that are given to millions of Mexicans in border areas for short visits. The border crossing cards do not include work authorization but some break the rules.
Even concern about Trump’s threat to end the North American Free Trade Agreement is tempered by awareness that border economies have been integrated for decades. Mexican “maquiladora” plants, which assemble duty-free raw materials for export to the U.S., have made televisions, medical supplies and other goods since the 1960s.
“How do you separate twins that are joined at the hip?” said Paola Avila, chairwoman of the Border Trade Alliance, a group that includes local governments and business chambers. “Our business relationships will continue to grow regardless of what happens with NAFTA.”
Workers in the Mexicali area rise about 1 a.m., carpool to the border crossing and wait about an hour to reach Calexico’s portico-covered sidewalks by 4 a.m. Some beat the border bottleneck by crossing at midnight to sleep in their cars in Calexico, a city of 40,000 about 120 miles (192 kilometers) east of San Diego.
Fewer workers make the trek now than 20 and 30 years ago. But not because of Trump.
Steve Scaroni, one of Imperial Valley’s largest labor contractors, blames the drop on lack of interest among younger Mexicans, which has forced him to rely increasingly on short-term farmworker visas known as H-2As.
“We have a saying that no one is raising their kids to be farmworkers,” said Scaroni, 55, a third-generation grower and one of Imperial Valley’s largest labor contractors. Last week, he had two or three buses of workers leaving Calexico before dawn, compared to 15 to 20 buses during the 1980s and 1990s.
Crop pickers at Scaroni’s Fresh Harvest Inc. make $13.18 an hour but H-2As bring his cost to $20 to $30 an hour because he must pay for round-trip transportation, sometimes to southern Mexico, and housing. The daily border commuters from Mexicali cost only $16 to $18 after overhead.
Scaroni’s main objective is to expand the H-2A visa program, which covered about 165,000 workers in 2016. On his annual visit to Washington in February to meet members of Congress and other officials, he decided within two hours that nothing changed under Trump.
“Washington is not going to fix anything,” he said. “You’ve got too many people – lobbyists, politicians, attorneys – who make money off the dysfunction. They make money off of not solving problems. They just keep talking about it.”
Jose Angel Valenzuela, who owns a house in Mexicali and is working his second harvest in Imperial Valley, earns more picking cabbage in an hour than he did in a day at a factory in Mexico. He doesn’t pay much attention to news and isn’t following developments on the border wall.
“We’re doing very well,” he said as workers passed around beef tacos during a break. “We haven’t seen any noticeable change.”
Jack Vessey, whose family farms about 10,000 acres in Imperial Valley, relies on border commuters for about half of his workforce. Imperial has only 175,000 people and Mexicali has about 1 million, making Mexico an obvious labor pool.
Vessey, 42, said he has seen no change on the border and doesn’t expect much. He figures 10 percent of Congress embraces open immigration policies, another 10 percent oppose them and the other 80 percent don’t want to touch it because their voters are too divided.
“It’s like banging your head against the wall,” he said.
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Not two weeks ago, President Donald Trump wagged his finger at a Republican senator and scolded him for being “afraid of the NRA,” declaring that he would stand up to the powerful gun lobby and finally get results on quelling gun violence following last month’s Florida school shooting.
On Monday, Trump struck a very different tone as he backpedaled from his earlier demands for sweeping reforms and bowed to Washington reality. The president, who recently advocated increasing the minimum age to purchase an assault weapon to 21, tweeted that he’s “watching court cases and rulings” on the issue, adding that there is “not much political support (to put it mildly).”
Over the weekend, the White House released a limited plan to combat school shootings that leaves the question of arming teachers to states and local communities and sends the age issue to a commission for review. Just two days earlier, Trump had mocked commissions as something of a dead end while talking about the opioid epidemic. “We can’t just keep setting up blue-ribbon committees,” he said, adding that all they do is “talk, talk, talk.”
Seventeen people were killed in last month’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, prompting a national conversation about gun laws, fierce advocacy for stronger gun control from surviving students and, initially, a move from Trump to buck his allies at the National Rifle Association.
In a televised meeting with lawmakers on Feb. 28, Trump praised members of the gun lobby as “great patriots” but declared “that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything. It doesn’t make sense that I have to wait until I’m 21 to get a handgun, but I can get this weapon at 18.”
He then turned toward Senator Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, and questioned why previous gun control legislation did not include that provision.
“You know why?” said Trump, answering his own question. “Because you’re afraid of the NRA, right? Ha ha.”
Toomey had a ready response after the president’s tweet Monday: “It’s quite obvious that I’m the guy that stood up to the NRA,” he said. Asked if Trump was afraid of the NRA, Toomey said, “I don’t know what’s driving his decision.”
His words rattled some Republicans in Congress and sparked hope among some gun control advocates that, unlike after so many previous mass shootings, meaningful regulations would be enacted. But Trump appeared to foreshadow his change of heart with a tweet the very next night.
“Good (Great) meeting in the Oval Office tonight with the NRA!” the president wrote.
Following ‘process’
White House aides said Monday the president was focusing on achievable options, after facing significant opposition from lawmakers on a more comprehensive approach. Trump will back two modest pieces of legislation, and the administration pledged to help states pay for firearms training for teachers.
Seemingly on the defensive after his about-face, Trump tweeted Monday of the age limit that “States are making this decision. Things are moving rapidly on this, but not much political support (to put it mildly).”
The White House insisted that Trump remained committed to more significant changes even if they are delayed.
“We can’t just write things down and make them law. We actually have to follow a process,” said press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “Right now the president’s primary focus is pushing through things we know that have broad bipartisan support.”
She placed blame for the inaction on Capitol Hill. But Trump has made little effort to marshal the support of congressional Republicans or use his popularity with NRA voters to provide cover for his party during a contentious vote.
Democrats and gun control advocates were quick to pounce on the president’s retreat from previous demands, with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, tweeting that Trump “couldn’t even summon the political courage to propose raising the age limit on firearm purchases – despite repeated promises to support such a step at a meeting with lawmakers.”
Television personality Geraldo Rivera — who had urged the president to consider tougher age limits during a dinner at Trump’s Florida club — tweeted that Trump had “blinked in face of ferocious opposition from #NRA.”
Bipartisan support
Still, Trump argued that this was progress.
“Very strong improvement and strengthening of background checks will be fully backed by White House,” he tweeted. He added that an effort to bar bump stock devices was coming and that “Highly trained expert teachers will be allowed to conceal carry, subject to State Law. Armed guards OK, deterrent!”
Without strong advocacy from the White House, an ambitious gun package was unlikely to even get off the ground, given most Republicans’ opposition to any new restrictions. The two measures backed by Trump — an effort to strengthen the federal background check system and an anti-school violence grant program — both enjoy bipartisan support, though some Republicans object and many Democrats say they are insufficient.
Trump drew some Republican backing, with Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who wrote the school safety bill, tweeting he was “grateful” for the White House backing and calling the measure “the best first step we can take” to make students safer.
No deadline was set for recommendations from Trump’s planned commission, but officials expected them within a year.
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Chile’s new government is preparing belt-tightening measures after inheriting a larger-than-anticipated fiscal deficit from its predecessor, but the measures will stop short of “mega-adjustments,” Finance Minister Felipe Larrain said on Monday.
Conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera took office on Sunday vowing to combat economic “stagnation” and calling for a return to “fiscal equilibrium” as he seeks to transform Chile into a developed nation within a decade.
“We’re in a period of tight budgets, with levels of public debt that have doubled, which means we must begin with austerity measures, followed by a reassigning resources, in order to finance the president’s program,” Larrain told reporters as he entered the finance ministry for his first day on the job.
Shortly before leaving office, outgoing President Michelle Bachelet’s government reported it had left a fiscal deficit of 2.1 percent of gross domestic product, instead of 1.7 percent as targeted.
Chile’s Congress this year authorized an increase in public spending of 3.9 percent, which Pinera had previously criticized as “high.”
“These austerity measures, and the wise use of resources, are always welcome and are necessary. But we’re not talking about mega-adjustments, we’re talking about austerity measures,” Larrain said.
During his campaign, Pinera, who also governed from 2010 to 2014, said he hoped to guide the country to fiscal equilibrium within six to eight years.
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It’s a time-tested Washington strategy for making a difficult policy question disappear: death by “blue ribbon” commission.
Presidents, Congress and some agency heads set up panels stocked with subject experts to offer sage advice to policymakers. But these panels sometimes are used to slow-walk thorny policy into oblivion.
President Donald Trump chose what one expert calls “the blue ribbon option” when he assigned a sensitive gun control proposal to a new panel on school safety, part of a package the White House announced Sunday in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. He put Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in charge of the panel and left clues that a key proposal he’s voiced support for — raising the purchase age for some firearms — was now in doubt
There’s “not much political support (to put it mildly),” the president tweeted about the proposal, which is opposed by the National Rifle Administration.
For lawmakers and presidents, creating a commission “represents movement, it’s something that they can report, especially if they’re subject to criticism that they’re taking no action or they’re tone deaf,” said Kenneth D. Kitts, a political science professor at the University of North Alabama and the author of “Presidential Commissions and National Security: The Politics of Damage Control.”
Trump has made it clear he doesn’t think much of such panels, either.
“We can’t just keep setting up blue-ribbon committees with your wife and your wife and your husband and they meet and they have a meal and they talk. Talk, talk, talk,” the president groused when discussing the opioid crisis at a rally Saturday outside Pittsburgh. “That’s what I got in Washington. I got all these blue-ribbon committees. Everybody wants to be on a blue-ribbon committee.”
Commissions through history have produced important historical information, policy and even material for criminal trials. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the Warren Commission to produce a record of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. President George W. Bush’s 9/11 Commission was established to account for the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.Others were less successful. In 2010, President Barack Obama’s bipartisan debt reduction commission did not win enough votes among its members to send it to Congress for a vote.
In 2001, President George W. Bush created a 16-member bipartisan commission to study the feasibility of “modernizing” Social Security. Its recommendations floundered in Congress.
Critics of commissions say they’re primarily created for reasons other than good public policy: They allow lawmakers and officials to look like they’re doing something about controversial topics without having to take a position that could alienate some constituencies — such as the NRA, in the case of Republicans in this midterm election year. Their members are not elected or accountable to the public.
There’s also no quality control, and they’re expensive. The Congressional Research Service in November 2017 reported that commission costs can range from several hundred thousand dollars to more than $10 million. And after all that, lawmakers can simply ignore a commission’s conclusion.
Trump has had some experience as president with the peril of blue-ribbon commissions.
His unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegally cast ballots cost him the popular vote in 2016 led to his executive order last May establishing a commission on “election integrity.” The panel’s work quickly devolved into squabbling, with states refusing to give up their voting information and critics saying the commission was actually about suppressing votes.
In January, Trump terminated the commission and transferred its duties to the Department of Homeland Security.
His commission on opioids produced limited results. In October, Trump declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency. He announced an advertising campaign to combat what he said was the worst drug crisis in the nation’s history, but did not direct any new federal funding toward the effort.
Trump’s declaration stopped short of the emergency declaration that had been sought by a federal commission the president created to study the problem. An interim report by the commission argued for an emergency declaration, saying it would free additional money and resources.
But in its final report in November, the panel called only for more drug courts, more training for doctors and penalties for insurers that dodge covering addiction treatment. It did not call for new money to address the epidemic.
“Do you think the drug dealers who kill thousands of people during their lifetime, do you think they care who’s on a blue-ribbon committee?” Trump railed on Saturday.
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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is backing up British Prime Minister Theresa May’s assertion that Russia is behind the attack on a former Russian spy in England, saying it certainly “will trigger a response.”
“This is a really egregious act. It appears that it clearly came from Russia,” Tillerson said Monday en route to Cape Verde.
Tillerson spoke with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson over the phone shortly after taking off from Nigeria. Tillerson wrapped up his five-nation trip to Africa on Monday.
May said it is clear that former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. She added that the action amounted to a use of chemical weaponry on British territory.
Russia refuted May’s allegation, saying it is another political campaign based on provocation.
“There is never a justification for this type of attack — the attempted murder of a private citizen on the soil of a sovereign nation — and we are outraged that Russia appears to have again engaged in such behavior,” said Tillerson in a statement released by the State Department. “From Ukraine to Syria — and now the U.K. — Russia continues to be an irresponsible force of instability in the world, acting with open disregard for the sovereignty of other states and the life of their citizens.”
The statement continued: “We agree that those responsible — both those who committed the crime and those who ordered it — must face appropriately serious consequences. We stand in solidarity with our Allies in the United Kingdom and will continue to coordinate closely our responses.”
Tillerson told a small group of reporters, “It’s almost beyond comprehension that a state, an organized state, would do something like that.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump is blocking Singapore-based Broadcom, maker of computer and smartphone chips, from taking over U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm.
Trump cited national security grounds in stopping the takeover, following the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The committee reviews national security implications when foreign entities purchase U.S. corporations.
The president’s order said there is “credible evidence” that the takeover “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
Broadcom made an unsolicited bid last year to take over Qualcomm for $117 billion.
The company has been in the process of moving its legal headquarters from Singapore to the United States to help it win approval for the takeover.
Qualcomm, which is based in San Diego, has emerged as one of the biggest competitors to Chinese companies, such as Huawei Technologies, making it an attractive asset for potential buyers in the semiconductor industry.
Companies in the industry are racing against each other to develop 5G wireless technology to transmit data at faster speeds.
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Генеральна прокуратура України підтвердила припинення кримінального провадження щодо лідера партії «Рух нових сил» Міхеїла Саакашвілі, повідомив 12 березня речник ГПУ Андрій Лисенко.
Він написав у Facebook, що 6 березня ГПУ направила запит Нідерландам про надання міжнародної правової допомоги для виконання процесуальних та слідчих дій з участю Саакашвілі. Цей запит відомство надіслало в межах досудового розслідування кримінального провадження за підозрою Саакашвілі.
«У зв’язку із чим вказане кримінальне провадження зупинено на підставі п. 3 ч. 1 ст. 280 КПК України, з метою економії перебігу процесуальних строків досудового розслідування до отримання результатів міжнародної правової допомоги», – вказав Лисенко.
Водночас досудове розслідування кримінального провадження щодо соратника Саакашвілі Северіона Дангадзе триває, додав речник.
На початку грудня 2017 року генеральний прокурор України Юрій Луценко оприлюднив записи телефонних розмов, ймовірно, Северіона Дангадзе та представника українського бізнесмена Сергія Курченка, який переховується в Росії. На плівках чоловіки домовляються про фінансування бізнесменом масових акцій протесту в Україні.
Луценко заявив, що лідер партії «Рух нових сил», екс-голова Одеської ОДА Міхеїл Саакашвілі отримав від Курченка півмільйона доларів на свою діяльність в Україні. Генпрокурор повідомив, що оприлюднює першу частину даних операції «зі зриву плану реваншу прокремлівських сил в Україні». У команді Саакашвілі це заперечували.
Стаття, за якою затримали Дангадзе, – «посягання на територіальну цілісність і недоторканність України».
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